


How Sweet It Would Be (To See Him Again)

by foreiqnersgod



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, And in Winterfell everyone says Theon Greyjoy Rights!, Angst with a Happy Ending, Anti Tyrion Lannister, F/M, I wrote most of this on my plane and in line at customs, Merry Christmas Eve!!, The TRUE ending to the Long Night, This is not edited at all lmao, and I haven’t slept in like 36 hours so!, in this house we say no to dumb shock value deaths, oh yeah
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-24
Updated: 2019-12-24
Packaged: 2021-02-25 21:08:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,090
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21931990
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/foreiqnersgod/pseuds/foreiqnersgod
Summary: The night is dark and full of terrors. But with the morning sun comes grief and hope.
Relationships: Theon Greyjoy/Sansa Stark
Comments: 6
Kudos: 36





	How Sweet It Would Be (To See Him Again)

**Author's Note:**

> Merry Christmas my friends and HAPPY BIRTHDAY PENNY!!

She was alive. Somehow, she had lived through the mythical horrors of the night. She looked around and found Gilly, Little Sam, and Missandei among the survivors. Tyrion went to look for Varys, she assumed (in the darkest part of her heart, she wished he had been a victim of the creatures in the crypt). They opened the door to find the rising sun shining weakly on the snow, illuminating an uncountable amount of fallen warriors. She looked down to see how her own hands and dress were covered in the blood of her people that she had failed to protect.

She glanced around desperately for a familiar face and breathed a sigh of relief when Brienne and Podrick came into view. She rushed to greet them, check their wounds, before the path to the Godswood called to her. With a sinking feeling in her stomach and her heart in her throat, she walked over to the sacred area.

It was Jon she saw first at the entrance of the Godswood. He was bloody and clearly could barely stand on his feet, but that did not stop him from catching her as she threw herself into his arms. He gripped her tight as he took in her appearance, a horror forming in his eyes as it sinks in that absolute carnage took place in the crypts. He opened his mouth to say something-an apology most likely for not being able to save their people-but she just shook her head. They all knew that nowhere would be truly safe from the White Walkers. Instead, they just clung to each other a little bit harder.

She stepped out of her eldest brother’s embrace to find her sister and little brother watching them. She raced over and pulled Arya to her. She responded immediately, but soon enough she felt her sister’s hands squeezing her tight. Finally, she turned to Bran; Bran who, for the first time since they had reunited, look like the brother she knew as a child and not the omnipotent creature known as the Three Eyed Raven. They, too, clutched each other. No words need pass between the siblings; their love and relief was palpable in the air.

They were the last of the Starks and together they were survivors. But there was someone missing. A part of her pack was unaccounted for.

Breaking the solemn silence of the moment, Bran shattered Sansa’s heart with two simple words: “I’m sorry”.

She moved as though she was in a trance. Walking through her family’s sacred center, she found the crumbled body of her hero bleeding out into the snow. Even she could tell he was long gone from the world; she could feel it, had felt it the moment she walked out of the crypt. An emptiness deep within, a presence that could never be filled.

Sansa would pray for the rest of her days that because Theon has died in sight of her gods, they would take pity on his soul and grant him eternal peace. For he didn’t look peaceful in death; it broke her heart, that he seemed to have died thinking he let down her family one last time.

She let out a guttural scream as she knelt down beside and buried her face in his frozen neck. Cold. So cold.

She felt a presence behind her-Arya, she thought. “He died a hero, Sansa. Without him here, I would never have been able to get to the Night King. He helped to save humanity,” her sister said in an attempt to comfort her. The horrible truth was that deep down, a part of Sansa didn’t care if he saved everyone else; she just wanted someone to save him for once.  
*  
Theon’s face was cold and stiff against her gentle caress. It was hard to believe that just hours ago it was warm and pliant against hers as they embraced one another for the first time in years. The last time Sansa would ever be blessed to feel his touch.

She took in his frame as Brienne and Podrick helped her remove his armor; they were the only two people she trusted to touch him as they brought him in to be prepared for the funeral pyre. They had seen him at his worst after they escaped from him, so she knew if they happened to catch a glimpse of his scars, they would not be shocked. Sansa wanted Theon to have every ounce of dignity as he could get before being sent to the halls of his drowned god.

She watched in complete silence as they carefully peeled of his breastplate, scratched from battle and crusted with dried blood from the-

She couldn’t bring her eyes to that area of him just yet.

Brienne and Pod finished their task and placed breast plate gently on the ground; Sansa would repair it as much as she could before the funeral. They turned to her then, both with sorrow in their eyes. There was an awkward pause and then Brienne spoke up.

“He was a brave man, my Lady. What he did for you, offering himself to the Bolton forces in hopes that you would live, was the most brave act I have heard,” her friend said through bloody lips.

Podrick piped up and told Sansa in his quiet, choked up (but no longer stuttering, Sansa thought will slight pride) voice, “When we came to rescue you outside of Winterfell, a Bolton soldier almost killed me. If it wasn’t for Lord Greyjoy picking up a fallen sword and sneaking up on him, I would be dead. We would have all been dead tonight if it wasn’t for him.”

She barely contained her sobs at their kind words. It made her heart burst just a bit to know that these people, whom Theon knew for but a short time, thought so highly of him. That they thought of him as she did: a brave hero from a song. She dared not open her mouth for fear of unleashing the tidal wave of tears building within her, so she stood up from the stool to give them both a hug. They went rigid with surprise before sinking into her affection; the three of them embracing in friendship and grief for the man whose fatal sacrifice made it possible to embrace in the first place.

They stayed like that for a moment before the door opened, letting pale sunlight into the room. Cara, a maid who Sansa had asked to bring the needed supplies to properly take care of Theon’s body, walked into the room with an apologetic gleam in her eyes. “I am sorry to intrude, but I’ve brought what you have asked for, Lady Sansa”.

“Thank you, Cara”, Sansa said with a raspy voice. Between containing her tears and the screams that were ripped from her soul when she first entered the Godswood, it hurt her to speak. Cara, with a devasting pity in her eye-it seemed that everyone in Winterfell already knew of her screaming grief, nodded her goodbye before leaving the room.

She turned back to Brienne and Pod. “You both should go tend to your own wounds and get some rest while you can. We all know there are battles left to be fought; who knows when we will next have a moment of peace,” she told them. Brienne hesitated and Sansa knew that she did not want to leave her alone while in such a vulnerable state.

But Sansa needed to be alone for this, needed to have a one last moment to be with Theon. At the funeral pyre, she would have to be the Lady of Winterfell, with an icy composure and bone dry eyes. But here, for just a few moments, she could be just be Sansa Stark grieving uncontrollably over the loss of her savior. To touch him and hold him as she never had the chance to before the battle.

Podrick turned to Brienne with a pleading look and she finally conceded to leave the room. She reached down to give Sansa’s shoulder a comforting squeeze. “If you need us, we won’t be too far. Just call for us,” she told her before turning to walk out with Pod.

Finally alone with Theon, she reached for the scissors that laid on a nearby table and got to work cutting off his ruined clothes. She made quick work of his linen shirt, revealing a patchwork of scars on his upper body. She took off her leather gloves and gently stroked his chest, feeling the roughness of his skin on her bare fingertips as she closed her eyes to fully take in the feeling of him.

It didn’t seem fair, that he survived so much horror only for him to be killed by a wooden spear mere moments before Arya slayed the Night King. She was forever thankful that he had come back to her, that he sacrificed his life to protect Bran. And she knew it was selfish of her to wish him alive when so many others were lost in battle, as well. But still. Still, she would give up everything just to see again his gentle smile, see the sea green of his eyes.

She remembered the look in his eyes as they ate a final meal of thin beef broth; the look of absolute devotion would be burned into her heart for as long as she breathed. He may have been her savior, but she was his salvation.

Sansa moved to get the wash cloth and pail of water and caught sight of the wound that took her heart away from her. It was a gaping, jagged wound that cut straight through his abdomen all the way to his back. Tears formed in her eyes at the thought of how painful it must have been, how long he suffered before finally fading away.

Taking a deep breath, she returned to the scissors to cut off his trousers so he was completely nude. Like with the Night King’s wound, she avoided looking at that wound, instead focusing her attention on unlacing his boots.

With no more clothes to remove to stall her, she started to clean the mess on his body with careful precision. For what felt like hours, she moved the rag up and down his frame, removing the grime from every crevice of his body, even the areas she wanted to avoid.

After that was done, she took a bucket of fresh water and oh so carefully poured some over his head to try and clean his hair of dried blood. She smiled softly to herself as she combed his hair, trying to tame his unruly bronze curls. When he had returned to her-for her-she had the urgent desire to run her fingers through his hair and find out for herself if his hair was as soft as it looked. She ran her fingers through his now clean hair and discovered that is in fact that soft.

She moved to his fatal wound. She had already cleaned it, but that wasn’t enough. She had to close the gap, to make him whole again for when he went to the Drowned God’s halls. She slowly started to stitch up the holes in his body to the best of her abilities. It was a long process, making it look as natural as possible, but it was worth it. For him, she would do anything, no matter how tedious.

Finally, she started to dress him in the spare clothing that he had left in his room a few days prior. She methodically laced up His breeches and boots quickly enough and moved to start putting his new undershirt over his chest when she paused. Once she had finished dressing him, she would need to call for assistance in bringing his body to the pyre where the rest of the fallen were most likely already waiting to be burned; while all those lost in the night would have their bodies cleaned and treated with respect, Sansa knew she would be the one to dedicate the most time to making Theon’s body presentable. She lingered there in the cold, empty room because the sooner she finished, the sooner the last traces of Theon would disappear. And she could not take it; could not exist knowing he was gone.

Burying her face into his bare chest, Sansa let out all the tears that had been welling in her eyes since the sun arose. She sobbed into his ghostly skin for what he had suffered through and for what happiness he would never get to experience (happiness that would be achieved with her by his side, if he would have her). Gasping for breath, she traced the stitches of the spear wound as she spoke into the empty air.

“I’m so sorry, Theon. I’m so sorry for ignoring you when we were children, when you were taken from your own family and held captive with ours because of crimes you did not commit. I thought about you a lot while I was a hostage of my own, in King’s Landing, and how I wished I was kinder to you.

“But then I was told that you murdered Bran and Rickon, and I was filled with a hatred that surpassed even my hate for Joffrey. I was so filled with rage at the sight of you in the kennels, I was glad to see you being treated lower than the hounds. And a part of me was appalled with myself for my own glee at your pain, that I had become a person who reveled at the misfortune of others- no matter what pain they had caused me. I hope you know that you never deserved any of what he did to you.”

She reached up to trace his lips with her thumb as she continued in a broken voice, ”I’m sorry that I never spoke up against your plan to stay in the Godswood. That I never begged you to stay in the crypts- to stay with me!” Her speech was nearly unintelligible from the sobs. “You saved me when it mattered the most and I couldn’t save you in return!

“I’m sorry for all the things I never said: that you were my hero, my someone brave and strong and gentle. That you were my warmth in the darkness. That you were my heart’s home.

“That I love you.” She whispered the sacred words.

Sansa got up from his chest and planted three kisses on his body: one on his jagged scar, one on his ice blue lips, and one over his still heart. She covered him the salt water of her tears. Bless him with salt, she thought bitterly.

She had been in her too long; it wasn’t fair to everyone else waiting for the funeral pyres to be lit. Wiping her face as best she could, she finished dressing him back in his armor; she was sorry for not being able to mend the breastplate. She gathered herself and put back into the place the calm composure of her Lady of Winterfell mask. Turning to leave to get someone to carry him out, she spared Theon one last glace.

And felt her heart stop cold in her chest. Theon’s death, it would appear, had not only broken her heart but broken her mind in a way that her parents, Robb, and Rickon never had.

She had seen-she had thought she had seen- Theon’s lips part and suck in a breath. That the pallor of his body was shifting to a still too pale but lively tone. That she could hear the faint intake of breath.

It was impossible. And yet just a few moons ago, Sansa would have thought it impossible to imagine fighting off the reanimated corpses of her decaying ancestors. If she could believe in something so horrible, why shouldn’t she believe in a miracle?

Slowly, as if reacting too fast would break the spell of the moment, she walked over to him.

His lips were pale pink, his eyelids fluttering as if awakening from a deep slumber. Sansa tentatively reached out her fingertips to his heart-and felt a faint but steady beat underneath them.

His calm sea green eyes that she thought she would never see again in this life met her stunned blue ones. He gently smiled up at her as he reached for her hand; he held both of the hands together over his heart.

There was so much she wanted to say but she could not get a single word out. Instead, she threw herself as gently as she could manage over his body-did he feel the pain of his wounds? shewondered- and again sobbed into his chest. Although this time for a completely different reason.

He held her through her tears and soothed her. After a few moments of feeling his…everything...return to him, she sat up. He was looking at her like she was the Maiden and for the first time since girlhood, she flushed with delight at the adoration in his gaze.

“Theon...how?” It was the most direct question she could ask.

All he could do was shrug. He caressed her cheek as he answered her, “I heard everything you confessed to me. I couldn’t let you go without giving you an answer in return.”

This past night has brought unimaginable terror to the North. The blood and gore that stained her home could never be washed away, no matter how much time passes. The grief for those lost in battle will never pass.

But the night is over and the sun shines down on the North once again. There is wicked, terrible magic in the world. But from it comes a magic so pure and full of light.

The threat of the Night King led to alliances no one in either Westorosi or Essosi history has witnessed. The blood and gore will never truly be cleansed, but to lessen the grief will be built grand memorials. The brave men and women lost in the night will be remembered through the ages as mythical heroes.

Sansa bit her lip and looked at her hero. “And what, pray tell, is your response to my confessions?”

She watched as sunlight streamed into the room and shone down on them both; a sign of the magic, of hope, of love.

Theon gripped her chin softly. He brought their lips together.

She has her answer.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you guys for reading!! I hope you all have a wonderful holiday! Feel free to follow me on tumblr: sansagreyjoystark and on Twitter: sansaerygreyjoy


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